If you think Scarlett Johansson's version of Vermeer's girl has too much of a Hollywood veneer, get up close and personal with authentic 17th and 18th century paintings. NYU's "Great Old Masters in the Metropolitan Museum of Art," beginning February 4, prefers the real thing to reproductions; hence, class meets at the Met. Cost: $370. [Tedra Meyer]

WRITING

Details

EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT

"Spanking the Monkey: The Strangest Children's Book of the 19th Century Teaches You the Facts of LifeComplete With Singing Vagina"
By Paul Collins

"Re-Rethinking SUNY
New York State's Public Higher Ed Deserves More MoneyNot Less"
By John Giuffo

"The Real Estate Job Shuffle: Lost Your Job in Finance? No Problem. For a Small Investment of Time and Money, You Can Be on Your Way to Making a Living in Real Estate."
By Jessica Goldbogen

Whether you endured childhood poverty in Ireland or just suffered through a series of bad hairstyles, your adoring public deserves to hear all about it. Hunter College's "Everyone Has a Story: Memoir Writing" class (212-650-3850, http://ce.hunter.cuny.edu) will help you mold your tales of survival into literature, for the edification of the masses or simply for your own narcissistic satisfaction.

"A monkey could write this stuff!" you think, as another must-see lineup leaves you feeling empty. Now's your chance to hone your own simian skills crafting a spec script in Gotham Writers' Workshop's "TV Sitcom Writing I" (gothamwritersworkshop.com). The course promises to present the fundamentals of the genre "in an easy-to-understand, accessible manner." Thank God, because those literary references on I'm With Her are waaay over my head.

You see enough weird shit to fill a novel every time you get on the subway. As long as you're stuck putting up with it, why not write it down? The 92nd Street Y's "In a New York Minute: Writing the City Experience" (212-601-1000, 92y.org) promises to help you draw inspiration from your Big Apple adventures, both "mundane" and "magical," in the process of creating short masterpieces of fiction and nonfiction. My project is a piece of magical realism called, "The Local That Mysteriously Becomes an Express and Skips My Stop Whenever I'm Running Late." [Mollie Wilson]